Gardeners the world over are obsessed with flowers. I am no exception. As well as being beautiful to look at, flowers are a sign of success, something one can measure a garden and its gardener by. Along with fruit and vegetables, flowers are part of the horticultutal triumvirate we choose to judge competitively, always striving to grow them bigger and better than others.

Nurturing a plant to the point where it bears flowers is one of the great challenges and rewards of gardening. Throughout history gardeners have gone to extreme lengths and waited patiently for cherished plants to bloom; from the heated water tank built at Kew by Joseph Paxton to coax Victoria amazonica into bloom, to the 70 years waited by conservationists to witness rare red helleborines flowering in Gloucestershire. We are all suckers for flowers, but without foliage most blooms would, quite literally, amount to nothing.

Apart from the obvious role leaves play in creating fuel for a plant to prosper and reproduce, the role of foliage as a foil for flowers cannot be underestimated. A neatly trimmed lawn can make the scruffiest border look respectable, a framing fringe of trees will anchor a newly created garden, and well-maintained hedges will provide the structure to contain any amount of riotous blossom. Without foliage our gardens would be about as sophisticated and lovely as one of those repellant pot chrysanthemums bred to produce a leafless dome of gaudy flowers.

Both our gardens rely heavily on greenery for year-round interest. Flowers, whilst treasured, play second fiddle. Occasionally I bemoan a temporary lack blooms, but then I look more closely and appreciate the richness of the leaves and stems that would support them. Foliage lasts longer than any flower I know and, chosen well, can offer just as much colour, texture, variety and indeed scent.

Foliage is a gardener’s staunchest ally. Flowers are fairweather friends that you should enjoy when they grace you with their presence, but not mourn when they are gone.

Our coastal garden has always been predominantly green, but this year I have been experimenting with silver, red, burgungy and purple-leaved plants. I am especially fond of the combination of Hibiscus ‘Mahogany Splendour’, Fuchsia ‘Contrast’, Cestrum fasciculatum ‘Newellii’, Plectranthus argentea and Tradescantia ‘Purple Sabre’ shown below. Just out of shot are Begonia ‘Benitochiba’ and Geranium sidoides which I’ve added to the composition as the summer has gone on.

To disguise our decrepit old aluminium greenhouse, I’ve grouped together pots filled with Pennisetum glaucum ‘Purple Majesty’, Begonia ‘Little Brother Montgomery’, Begonia luxurians, Imperata cylindrica ‘Red Baron’ and some seed-grown coleus. The flowers of a trailing red geranium and magenta Salvia curviflora are welcome, but not essential for me to enjoy the colourful arrangement.

As autumn approaches tender perennials such as Melianthus major and Solanum laciniatum make a mad dash for it, throwing up increasing amounts of leaf in an attempt to catch as much sunlight as possible. This makes for a marvellously jungly effect in both gardens.

If you’re planning an new garden, or a just thinking about replanting a small area, my advice is to think about foliage first and flowers second. This may sound counterintuitive, but it’s the leaves you’ll be enjoying next to one another for months on end, not the flowers, so it’s far more important to get the combinations right. Foliage can be quiet and calming, clipped and formal, bold and architectural or lush and exotic. The choice is yours, and the choice is endless.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on foliage and about combinations that have worked well for you this summer.

When I was a boy, most dahlias looked a little like D. ‘Lady Darlene’. They were bold and brazen, not afraid to be bi-coloured or brassy. Their flowers were either big, top-heavy confections or perfectly pert little pom-poms perfectly designed to hide earwigs. The dahlias of my childhood were the drag queens of the floral world, all loud and artificial, the rude girls in the garden. Is it any wonder that I adored them? And now they are back, perhaps not in the mainstream, but creeping into connoisseurs’ collections and creating a buzz again.

At The Salutation on Saturday, Head Gardener Steven Edney shamelessly confessed his love for these buxom beauties, even admitting that his girlfriend described his taste in flowers as ‘a little bit gay’. Here in the 3.5 acres surrounding one of Lutyens’ masterpieces there’s room enough for all persuasions. Steven’s passion for dahlias extends from shy singles to the kinkiest of colarettes.

Accompanied by a chorus of tithonias and cannas Dahlia ‘Lady Darlene’ put on quite a show. Her Phoenix-like petals would not look out of place on the Eurovision stage or in Shirley Bassey’s wardrobe. Quieter, but not a lot, was Dahlia ‘Babylon Lilac’ (above), her gorgeous, swept-back lavender-pink petals carried on plants of supreme stature. How fitting that she was bejewelled with raindrops. And then there was her sister D. ‘Babylon Gevland’, with apricot flowers slashed across with tangerine-orange.

These dahlias are fierce flowers, not afraid to be out and proud. They’ve been there, done that and thrown the t-shirt in the bin.

Rather like real drag queens, such diva dahlias are fun to spend the evening with but perhaps not what you’d take home to meet the parents. They are still too kitch and outrageous for most of us to integrate into our gardens. Time will inevitably change that view and in a few year’s time we’ll all be trying to out-do one another with our new fabulous friends. You heard it here first.

The Salutation Dahlia Festival continues until September 15th 2015

Dahlias come in all shapes and sizes. This is why, like other extensively hybridised flowers, dahlias are classified by flower type. There are waterlilies, stars, fimbriated (fringed) and cactus types; orchids, anemones, pompons and paeonies. Just don’t ask me to tell them all apart. Carving out a niche between the singles and the decorative doubles, collerette dahlias have the simple form of a single dahlia but with a flambuoyant twist.

Collerettes display a simple outer row of almost flat, overlapping petals, with a central disc encircled by a ‘collar’ of small florets that create a ruffled appearance. This extra frilly bit makes collerettes more decorative than their single sisters, but still easy to place in the border. A good collerette dahlia will hold its blooms nicely above the plant’s foliage, making them ideal for cutting, serving as a magnet for bees.

Dahlia maestro Steven Edney, Head Gardener at The Salutation, counts deep pink D. ‘Edith Jones’ amongst his favourite collerettes, growing several others including scarlet D. ‘Mars’, cool, creamy D. ‘April Heather’ and berry-bright D. ‘Lilian Alice’.

Daisy-like and dramatic, collerettes are the shooting stars of the dahlia family; bright, lively and just enough to brighten up your late summer borders.

It’s been three months since we bought the house next door. The idea is to convert The Watch House and Polegate Cottage into one home, giving us a library, an additional bathroom and two more bedrooms for guests. We need to make a good job of it as we might never be able to afford to move away! It turns out that quality builders in this neck of the woods are rarer than hen’s teeth but, finally, we have a good crew lined up and work will begin in the spring.

The cost of the conversion has exceeded my highest expectations. Consequently we are proceeding in two stages, offering me the opportunity to go bankrupt twice. The kitchen ‘wing’, which we want to turn into a conservatory, bathroom and store, will have to wait for some time. This is a pity as I had grand plans for our new conservatory and plants waiting in the wings. The upside is that I get to keep the aluminium greenhouse we inherited, which would have been demolished had we carried out the project in one go. It has been 22 years since I last had a greenhouse to play with so I am stupidly excited. There are a few broken and missing panes, the door doesn’t slide open properly and the window opener is kaput. Apart from that it’s structurally sound. Over the next few weeks I’ll be sprucing it up inside and out, erecting staging and generally preparing the greenhouse to overwinter anything that needs a little winter protection. I won’t go as far as heating it this year, but an electrical supply is to hand for the future.

Given we only picked up the keys to Polegate Cottage on June 2nd, it’s incredible how the garden has been transformed by a few pots of tender perennials and annuals. Many are spares from The Watch House or recent acquisitions which I am still assessing. We had hoped the building works would get underway this autumn, so I was reluctant to do anything too fancy in terms of creating a new layout. Instead I have had fun experimenting with plants that would neither fit nor suit our main garden, with groupings in strong reds, oranges and magentas, or cool silvers, mauves, pinks and purples. Succulents, including Cotyledon orbiculata, lampranthus, semperviums and aeoniums, have enjoyed the warm sheltered conditions. Watering has become more of a chore than I anticipated, although the pots have rapidly filled out, shading the surface of the compost and reducing the rate at which they dry out.

Looking back it’s extraordinary how everything has grown so prolifically even though planting continued well into August. This reinforces my belief that many gardening jobs are perfectly alright left a little later than the text books suggest. Senecio cristobalensis (red-leaved velvet senecio) has rocketed up in front of a window and is now producing lots of beautiful, velvety side shoots. This giant of a plant will be coming inside over winter as I can’t bear to let the frost cut it off in its prime. Tiny plantlets of Aeonium ‘Velour’ and Aeonium hierrense have developed generous rosettes of foliage and Canna iridiflora has revelled in the bright light reflected by the greenhouse. I have positioned pots of Dahlia ‘Happy Halloween’ in between to complement the canna’s drooping, lipstick-pink blooms.

Snails are a big problem at Polegate Cottage, just as they are next door, especially now that all the babies have hatched out. Each and every dahlia leaf seems to have become dinner for a minute mollusc.

In a few weeks I will be off on my travels, leaving me with the question of whether to bring plants indoors before or after I go. In a normal year I am prepared to gamble and leave things outside until late October, but one never knows when the first frosts might fall.

I am glad that I took the plunge and made the most of the new garden as next year it’s likely that I’ll need to wait until late spring / early summer before I can plant it up again. Builders, however highly recommended, are no great respecters of gardens, so I’ll just have to bide my time and move in swiftly when they leave.

Wishing you all a good week in your garden.

I am in Cornwall, where the hydrangea is Queen of Shrubs. No seaside garden is complete without at least one; indeed many are packed with dozens of them, punctuated here and there by windswept cordylines. Love them or hate them, hydrangeas are possessed of some of the most unique flower colourings in the plant world. Which other plant carries blooms in shades of Wedgwood blue, mauve, aqua, magenta and bruised plum all at the same time, on the same plant?

I spent half an hour in my sister’s garden this afternoon trying to capture some decent shots in gusty conditions. These are the best of a bad lot, but they are special to me as this particular hydrangea belonged to my grandmother and has flowered in the same spot since I was a little boy. It must be at least 40 years old. I have no idea what the variety is called, but the kaleidoscopic colours are extraordinary and intrigue me. They will continue to grow richer and more antiquated as autumn progresses, before finally turning the colour of brown paper.

The botanical gardens in Sicily’s first city, Palermo, are among the oldest and most important in Europe. Conceived in the late 1700’s no expense was spared on their construction. As today, early visitors were greeted by a triumphal neo-classical Gymnasium (intended for exercising the mind rather than the body), flanked by symmetrical buildings housing tropical plants (the Calidarium), and temperate plants (the Tepidarium).

The architect was the Frenchman Léon Dufourny, who also laid out a typical Linnean system of beds for the display and study of plants in their respective families. Botanical gardens from all over Northern Europe sent plants to Palermo that would otherwise have perished in colder climes. And how they flourished. The Orto Botanico di Palermo is now home to over 12,000 species, many of which have reached gigantic proportions, notably the drago tree (Dracaena draco), which occupies a knoll near a pond known as ‘the lagoon’, a towering Cook pine (Araucaria columnaris), and a massive specimen of the Moreton Bay fig (Ficus macrophylla) which arrived in Palermo from Norfolk Island in 1845.

Time and circumstance have not been entirely kind to the Orto Botanico. In the 1960s the grounds narrowly avoided being bisected by a new highway. Recently, in common with other botanical institutions around the world, the Orto Botanico has experienced funding cuts, the impact of which is sadly apparent. Parts of the garden have a distinct air of abandonment, as if someone had padlocked the gates 12 months ago and let nature take its course. Large tracts (the bright yellow ones in the plan below) are marked as ‘experimental areas’, which appears to be a gentle way of excusing a lot of weeds, or at the very least weedy looking plants.

Little remains of the extensive Linnean system (pale yellow), except the stonework belonging to the eight formal water basins. (The ‘aquarium’, a large round pool divided into 24 sections housing different aquatic flora, is completely intact and brimming with plants.) The Linnean area has been eclipsed by trees and palms which, whilst magnificent, are not what was originally intended. Cordoned-off and crumbling, it’s sad to see the garden’s original gates leading from the park of Villa Giulia in a parlous state of repair.

In trying to think up a name for this post I was tempted to refer to the gardens as the ‘Orto Jurrasico’: the possibility of a dinosaur wandering through the undergrowth never felt beyond the realms of possibility. In the ever-wise words of Him Indoors “it all needed a good chop”.

However, to suggest that the Orto Botanico is not interesting or attractive would be to do it an injustice. Most of the buildings are in good order and the central axes of the Viale Vincenzo Tineo and Viale delle Palme are neatly maintained, offering beautiful vistas through the garden. Lovers of palms, cycads, dracaenas and succulents will find it packed to the gunnels with impressive specimens that would not survive outdoors elsewhere in Europe. And, let’s face it, Palermo doesn’t have the climate for herbaceous borders and rockeries, so one has to judge it based on different criteria to an English botanical garden.

I was especially delighted to reacquaint myself with some of the plants we last saw in Madagascar – Alluaudia procera and A. humbertii. They evolved their octopus-like, spiny ‘trunks’ thousands of years ago to stave off herbivores, but the lemurs caught up and will happily nibble at the juicy leaves. In Palermo Alluaudias are unlikely to be troubled by anything more than a stumbling human, and I know which would come off worse.

The Giardino a Succulente is a treasure trove of cacti and other fleshy plants. Here they can achieve their full potential, many reaching full maturity. Elsewhere there is a cactus house, which is kept in good order with most plants labelled. However it doesn’t escape the trap of looking slightly tired and dusty as cactus houses often do. The shady pathways of the garden are lined-out with thousands of potted specimens which, judging from old photographic plates, is a tradition that dates back to the 1800s.

My fancy was tickled by the wonderful Echinocactus grusonii pictured below, ridged and armoured with sharp prickles, yet covered over at the top by creamy fluff. Those dark tufts will eventually bring forth yellow flowers.

We all know what an arboretum is, but I had never heard of a cycadetum. I know very little about the cycad family, apart from that they have been around since the Jurassic period (i.e. 145 million years). I can’t say that I am any the wiser following my visit to the Orto Botanico, but I could see the collection was impressive. It began with a specimen of Cycas revoluta (lately of shopping centres and public planting schemes all over the tropics) donated by Queen Maria Carolina in 1793. It was the first cycad to find a permanent home in Europe. As the garden developed it acquired Ceratozamia mexicana and Dioon edule from Mexico and Cycas circinalis from the Indian sub-continent. In 1997 the Orto Botanico added extensively to its collection with Dioon spinulosum (below), Encephalartos altensteinii, Encephalartos longifolius, Encephalartos villosus, Encephalartos ferrox (below), Macrozamia moorei and Zamia furfuracea.

One of the Orto Botanico’s finest features is the elegant Serra Maria Carolina, which was presented to the garden by Queen Maria Carolina of Austria. It’s also known as the Giardino d’Inverno, or Winter Garden. The original structure was fashioned from wood and glass, but over the course of the second half of the 19th century, it was rebuilt using cast-iron. The greenhouse was pleasantly cool inside even with an outside temperature of 37 degrees centigrade.

Despite the precarious condition of parts of the garden, a visit is a real treat on a hot sunny day. The exotic canopy of foliage provides delicious shade and a home for hundreds of rose-ringed parakeets, as at home in Palermo as they are in Kent. These are tough, adaptable birds, and I have a feeling the Orto Botanico shares the same traits. The garden has weathered the last 230 years and will surely survive the centuries that follow as one of Europe’s leading botanical institutions.

The Orto Botanico di Palermo, Via Lincoln 2, is both a botanical garden and a research and educational institution of the Department of Botany at the University of Palermo. It is open daily, but check the website before visiting.

Wherever I wandered in Sicily there they were, the coral-spangled pony-tails of Russelia equisetiformis, cascading from the brims of elegant terracotta pots. I had admired this Central Amercian sub-shrub before, in the grounds of a monastery in Lebanon, where it tumbled over marigolds to reach the edge of a sandstone wall.

Commonly known as coral fountain or firecracker plant, this plant’s delicate appearance belies its toughness. Russelia equisetiformis tolerates dry winds, high temperatures and any kind of soil provided it is well drained. Regular watering keeps the foliage looking its best and guarantees a constant succession of new stems. Plants are evergreen and will resprout from the base if frozen, but to flower well warm sunshine is needed. The Latin name ‘equisetiformis‘ is a nod to the plant’s resemblance to a horse’s tail, but the plant’s fine, feathery form also reminds me of an asparagus fern. The contrast of the lime-green foliage with the tubular coral-orange flowers is almost festive.

Knowing now that Russelia equisetiformis will tolerate cold, albeit not damp cold, I am determined to track it down for our coastal garden next summer. I have just the spot for it, in sharply drained soil at the edge of a raised bed, where it can cascade to its heart’s content.

Mirabilis jalapa: marvel of Peru, four o’clock flower, tea-time plant

It’s been an extraordinary weekend for gardening. The weather has been warm, dry and still; not a cloud in the sky from when the sun rose on Saturday morning until it set on Sunday evening. Feeling the sun on my face and back, I reflected on the likelihood that this could be the last time this year that I garden in shorts and a T-shirt. I couldn’t have wished for better working conditions, although malignering mosquitos took advantage of my bared limbs and I am now covered in itchy bites.

As always, I set out to achieve far more than was possible in two days: cleaning out terracotta pots ready for bulb planting, starting to bring tender succulents indoors, cleaning and repairing our dilapidated greenhouse. All three jobs remain half completed, for I am still engrossed in watering, deadheading and controlling rampant growth in both gardens.

Begonias, dahlias and salvias are still going strong, but one particular plant stands out at this time of year, its magenta flowers glowing in the rich autumn sunshine, and that’s Mirabilis jalapa, commonly known as marvel of Peru, four o’clock flower or tea-time plant. The last two names refer to the plant’s habit of flowering from mid-afternoon, filling the air with a fragrance akin to orange blossom. The trumpet-shaped flowers persist through the night and into the morning, before closing in the heat of the day.

Mirabilis jalapa is easily grown from seed and may bear magenta, yellow, red, white, orange or mauve flowers. A strange quirk (maybe the ‘marvel’ in marvel of Peru?) is the plant’s tendency to produce different coloured flowers on the same plant. Occasionally, individual blooms might be splashed or striped with contrasting colours. Pure magenta is my favourite – a perfect companion for hot pink salvias and orange dahlias.

When established, Mirabilis jalapa forms an overwintering tuber which gets bigger and tougher every year. It’s perfectly hardy in these parts, provided the tuber is given some shelter at the foot of a wall and kept reasonably dry over winter. Should you not be able to offer those precise conditions then plants will grow happily in a pot in a cool greenhouse or can be treated as an annual. Once you’ve persuaded Mirabilis jalapa to flower once you will never be without seed and can look forward to clouds of sweet perfume from mid-summer until the first frosts. What’s more, bees, butterflies and moths love it too.

Seeds of Mirabilis jalapa are available from Chiltern Seeds and Thompson and Morgan.

Memories of summer may still linger, but it’s time for us gardeners to be looking forward to next year. There are bulbs to plant, perennials to divide and seed catalogues to browse. It’s like spring, only browner.

For me it’s always a race to get my spring-flowering bulbs into the ground before I head off on my annual buying trip to Asia. This effectively writes off October, which, if you followed a text book, would be fine. Narcissus and many other small bulbs should to be planted in August and September. They like to send roots out into the warm earth before winter sets in. Tulips can wait until November or early December when the ground is cold. This triggers the bulbs to start growing and prevents the bulbs from rotting before they get started.

Beside the path leading up to our new house, Polegate Cottage, there is a narrow strip of soil at the foot of a rather characterful wall (read into that description what you will). Long-term I’d like to re-pave the path and widen the border, but not until the builders have finished next year. In the meantime I wanted to make the entrance look more inviting and colourful without breaking the bank.

Now when I say narrow, I mean narrow. The term ‘border’ sounds rather grandiose, but I don’t know how better to describe it. At one end of the 30ft path it’s 4 inches wide, at the other 12 inches. The soil is good, having been cultivated for many years by the previous owner. In preparing the ground for my streak of planting I added horticultural grit and a slow release fertiliser. Being on chalk, we never have to worry about providing the good drainage that bulbs like, but a lighter soil will warm up more quickly in spring.

So that there will be some synergy with The Watch House, I have chosen a selection of bulbs and bedding plants in shades of gold, copper, bronze, plum and purple. ‘Hot’ colours are a great precursor to the exotic plants that will follow next summer. I am sorry to say they were purchased from the local garden centre and not home grown, but once the greenhouse is up and running I will right that wrong and start growing bedding from seed.

My first step was to unpack and space the bulbs evenly on the surface of the soil so that an attractive rhythm will be created when the bulbs flower. Planting as soon as possible after buying is advisable – any dampness during storage can encourage mould. I chose varieties which bloom at different times so that we will enjoy flowers from February until early May:

• Tulipa ‘Blumex’ – an orange parrot style tulip flamed with red, yellow, pink, green and blue. Late flowering.
• Tulipa ‘Early Harvest’ AGM – an indispensible tulip with gold and orange lightly fragrant flowers. I’ve known it to bloom as early as February.
• Narcissus ‘Professor Einstein’ – large-cupped daffodil. White with a tangerine cup.
• Narcissus ‘Apotheose’ – a daffodil with luxurious, deep-yellow flowers with orange segments.

Having arranged the bulbs I positioned four Euphorbia ‘Ascot Rainbow’ to act as feature plants. These are drought tolerant perennials from the Mediterranean which will enjoy the tight squeeze at the foot of a sunny wall. The euphorbia will outlive the rest of the bedding and reward us with gold-variegated foliage year-round. As an added bonus the leaves will flush red as it gets colder and when new growth begins in spring.

In between the euphorbia I spaced pot-grown wallflowers and trays of violas and pansies. Hybridisation has created the ‘Sugar Rush’ strain of wallflowers which flower quickly from summer-sown seed, rewarding gardeners with flowers in both autumn and spring. As I planted them out I was propelled forward six months by their unmistakable scent.

I am not a great lover of pansies, which usually strike me as over-hybridised, but I couldn’t resist the lushious colour of Pansy ‘Matrix Sangria’. The cheerful flowers are a wonderful damson shade with rich purple and gold markings. Violas are more my cup of tea. I always like the dark-petalled ones, so plumped for ‘Sorbet F1 Blackberry’ which has deep purple flowers that glow in the autumn sun. Like the wallflowers they are perfumed, so by springtime we should be bathed in the scents of the season.

Taking into account multi-buy offers and other discounts, planting the 30ft run cost me under £60. This would have been very much less had I grown the bedding myself from seed. However, there’s no substitute for buying new bulbs every year if you want maximum flower power. Planting now, a little earlier tulips might prefer, will do the bulbs no harm. Residual warmth in the soil will allow the pansies, violas and wallflowers to establish a strong root system. A light sprinkling of slug pellets (apologies to organic gardeners, but not to snails), a thorough watering and the border was complete. I look forward to sharing with you how it grows, enduring rain, wind, frost and maybe even snow before arriving fragrant and overflowing with flowers in spring.

I always write my post about the RHS Autumn Harvest Festival Show will a tinge of sadness, as it falls just a few days before I head off to China. The dazzling displays of fruit, vegetables and autumn foliage remind me what I’ll be missing over the next three weeks. Of all the RHS London events I find the Harvest Festival Show the most nostalgic. I can almost imagine Lady Grantham gliding past the exhibits, nodding politely at be-tweeded Head Gardeners as they present the fruits of their labours. This show has changed very little over the last 100 years – a reminder that there are still folk who have the zeal to grow fine fruit and vegetable for the exhibition table.

The show programme is similar every year, so much so that I can even recall where different competition classes will be displayed. Their Graces the Duke of Marlborough and the Duke of Devonshire still do battle with their grapes but, as we’re witnessing in the latest series of Downton Abbey, the age in which the landed gentry dominated these shows is long past.

In the giant pumpkin competition it was schools rather than Earls in 2nd and 5th position. The glory of first prize went to Ian Paton with a plumptious fruit weighing 509kg (1112lbs) – that’s not far off the weight of a Shetland Pony. (I recall that in 2012 the same prize was awarded to one Stuart Paton with a fruit weighing 478kg. I can only assume these two pumpkin professionals must be related.) I cannot look at these fecund fruits without thinking of those obese, bedridden people that one sees on Channel 4 documentaries. However, despite their ripples and wrinkles there’s nothing faintly fleshy about them: they are hard as nails and not in the least bit saggy.

The sweet and sour scent of ripening apples hit you the moment you entered the Lindley Hall, discreetly illuminated for the special ‘Late’ event on Tuesday evening. It is the very essence of autumn, delicious yet hinting at decay. As usual exhibition displays of apples were prolific as well as perfect. R. V. Roger, a specialist in field-grown fruit trees, staged a mind-boggling display of varieties old and new. I asked advice about growing some low espaliers in our London garden and was encouraged to consider what kind of flavours and eating qualities I liked so that they could offer the best choice. If you are interested to know more, R.V. Roger are holding a special Apple Weekend this very weekend, the 10th and 11th of October, at their nursery in Pickering, North Yorkshire. I wish I could be there.

It would not be the Harvest Festival Show without rod-straight root vegetables, trim tomatoes and perky potatoes. Simon Smith from Loughborough showed us how first prizes are won with his entry into the ‘Collection of 4 Root Vegetables’. Us lesser gardeners can only admire such patience and attention to detail. I am just happy if my vegetables taste good.

I read a sign on one show bench explaining that all the fruit and vegetables entered in the show would be collected at the end by Save the Date Café, an establishment based in East London. They take food that’s destined for landfill and create meals which are offered to customers on a ‘pay-as-you-feel’ basis. Describing themselves as an ‘egalitarian eatery’, they use this as a way of bringing together all parts of the community, rich or poor, homeless or landed, in one friendly venue. It’s a great idea in a country where so much food in needlessly wasted. Save the Date’s chefs will be working with a lot of top-notch produce over the next few days: let’s just hope their customers like pumpkin soup :-)

If you’d like to look back over previous RHS London Harvest Festival Shows, follow these links: 2012, 2013, 2014.

Have a wonderful weekend one and all!

That’s it. I have readied both gardens for October, packed my bags and left Him Indoors in charge. I am now on the other side of the world. Anything could happen …… and it probably will.

Bidding farewell to our seaside garden was particularly tough this year. There were gingers coming into bloom, dahlias still setting the world alight, cuttings begging to be taken and mountains of bulbs left to plant. I didn’t quite finish renovating the greenhouse which meant many plants would have to hold on until November to take cover. Thank heavens we enjoy a mild and merciful microclimate in both Broadstairs and London.

I shall miss three weeks of precious gardening time and return home just in time to sling the last tulip bulbs into pots and tidy up before winter begins. In my suitcase there are seed catalogues, destined never to be read, along with several back copies of The Garden. I lay them out in my hotel room in the vain hope that one evening I may have the time and inclination to read them.

It may sound odd, but what I find hardest about travelling is the disconnection with my garden. I can cope with leaving friends and family behind: they will not have moved on in the space of three weeks. In contrast the garden will have altered irreversibly as the nights draw in and temperatures drop. I never know quite what to expect on my return, but always wish I had prepared better for my absence.

In the meantime I shall bask in Hong Kong’s balmy autumn sunshine. The temperatures are in the mid twenties here; a lovely soft, caressing heat that I could happily endure for a while longer. I shall try to bring a little of that subtropical warmth back with me to banish my travelling blues.

Mesembryanthemum crystallinum: bingcai, common ice plant, crystalline iceplant, ice greens.

When in China, my general policy is to eat every food I am presented with: after all, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I am rarely disappointed and often dazzled by the wonderful flavours, colours and textures that are shared with me. The Chinese and Taiwanese love to eat, and enjoy nothing better than to treat a guest to the best meal they can offer. Hence I will return home to the UK considerably plumper than when I left.

Over the last two weeks I have dined like a king on prawns, crab (soft-shell and hairy), lobster, eel, jellyfish, razor clams, beef, pork and chicken, all accompanied by wonderful rices, plump, deep-fried buns and gleaming green vegetables.

One appetiser which has always mystified me is a glistening, leafy shoot that’s served occasionally at the start of a meal with a vinegar-based dressing. The leaves appear to be coated with a thick frost, as if they’ve been stored in a freezer, but are in fact presented at room temperature. They taste fresh and clean, with just a hint of sour and salt to kick one’s palette into gear. Thousands of little bubbles on the surface of each leaf explode on the tongue as you chew them, releasing a burst of vitamin-rich refreshment.

Whilst adventurous, I do like to know what I am eating so I enquired and was told the vegetable was called ‘bingcai’ in Catonese or ‘ice greens’ in English. In Hong Kong the leaves have only been available for the last few years (at a steep £5 per kilo) having falling out of favour in the 1930s. Ice greens are in fact a member of the flowering mesembryanthemum family from South Africa and may also be cooked like spinach. Sautéed gently they will maintain their crunch very nicely.

Should you fancy growing this unique vegetable yourself, you can. In the UK, seeds are available from The Botany Seeds Company. Not only will you be trying something new, but you can guarantee your dinner guests will be dazzled by your worldliness and intrigued by the refreshing taste.

Coming up with a Christmas list is one of those annual tasks that sounds fun and indulgent, but which I find perenially difficult. Throughout the year I have no shortage of bright ideas, especially post Chelsea and Hampton Court when I am convinced I need shiny new tools, glossy magazine subsriptions or the latest variety of some rare and fickle plant. I possess very little willpower, so if I really want something I tend to buy it there and then. Other desires sink to the bottom of my mind to gather dust with everything I ever learned about maths, football and how to fix a car.

In 2015 I find myself with rather more of a list for Father Christmas than I expected. Since the end of the summer I have tried, reasonably successfully, to curtail any discretionary spending. This, as anyone who knows me well with attest to, has been no mean feat. Only one new shirt has made it into my wardrobe, and just a single pair of shoes. They are practical and I will get a lot of wear out of them I tell myself. (Bulbs, seeds and plants are excluded from all austerity measures: these are necessities, as every gardener knows.)

Since we are going to be building a library in the spring (the image above from House and Garden is almost exactly the result I am looking for) it follows that I will need books to fill it. We are both looking forward to the day when the precarious stalagmites of bound paper that have grown up around The Watch House are finally transferred to their new home. Top of my list is “The Gardens of Arne Maynard” published by Merrell. Beyond his celebrated Chelsea show gardens I know less that I would like about Arne Maynard, a designer renowned for his ability to interpret a garden’s unique sense of place. I hope this rather lushious book will quickly enlighten me.

On the practical side I am willing a friend to dig deep and gift me “The Greenhouse Expert”, written by the man who guided me through my early years as a gardener, Dr. David Gerald Hessayon. As a recent returnee to greenhouse gardening I hope this book will provide a simple, no-nonsense reference to growing under glass.

At some point in the future our existing aluminium greenhouse will have to move to make way for phase two of the building work at Polegate Cottage. The choice will then be to dismantle and re-site or replace with a new, more compact model. If my fairy godmother wins the lottery this side of Christmas I might ask her for Gabriel Ash’s “Grow and Store” model which combines a shed and greenhouse in one clever building. The grand size, measuring 13′ x 12′ would be the perfect retreat for me when Him Indoors and I fall out. I’d emerge the next morning, smelling of tomatoes and riddled with greenfly.

If I were to write a list of the all the books I had started reading this year but not finished, it would be a very lengthy list. However I’ll make time for Richard Mabey’s “The Cabaret of Plants” which explores, in Mr Mabey’s lyrical way, how plant species have influenced the human world, challenging our imaginations, shaping history and providing answers for our future. The Cabaret of Plants promises to be an enlightening and gripping read for those winter days when the gales roar in from the east.

Next on my list is a pair of Okatsune secateurs from Niwaki, a company that devotes itself to selling “great stuff for gardeners”. I don’t have hedges to trim or lawns to mow, so secateurs are are my blades of choice. Having been a confirmed Felco man for many years I feel it’s time to try something new. Like all Japanese products the design of Okatsune secateurs is simple, functional and stylish. The blades are fashioned from an especially tough steel and are designed to draw sap away from the cutting edges. Others that have converted from Felco to Okatsune say they’d never go back. We shall see!

And, finally, the lovely gate-legged tudor table that we hope might eventually grace the library will need a centrepiece. I’m angling for one of The Urban Botanist’s beautiful modern terrariums which I plan to plant up with orchids, ferns and mosses. The Supersize Aztec Gem terrarium costs £125 unplanted and stands an impressive 54cm high. This could be my fourth and lowest maintenance garden yet.

In truth my best Christmas present is something that money can’t buy – spending time with my sister and neice next weekend to exchange presents and enjoy a bit of play time. I don’t really need any of the gifts above, but I’m sure as hell not telling Father Christmas that.

What are you hoping that Father Christmas will bring you this year? Do share!

The promise of a new library has fuelled my growing obsession with books related to gardens and gardening. My Christmas list is a roll call of titles old and new, including Richard Mabey’s “The Cabaret of Plants“, Frank Lawley and Val Cobbins’ “Herterton House” and the late, great Will Giles’ “Encyclopaedia of Exotic Plants for Temperate Climates“.

The generosity of family and friends only extends so far, and my limited budget dictates that I won’t be able to furnish all of my bookshelves with spanking new tomes, so instead I have been trawling second hand bookshops far and wide, dredging up some surprisingly good finds.

Bargain of the year, purchased from the Oxfam Bookshop in Highgate, must be Volumes I and II of Martyn Rix and Roger Phillips’ “The Botanical Garden“. When originally published in 2002 each volume carried a £50 price tag: I snapped the pair up this weekend for just £30. The cheerful volunteer behind the cash desk declared my purchase “sale of the day”, which only served to compound my glee. 

A faded green slipcase envelops two weighty books printed in glorious technicolor. They appear never to have been opened or read. Despite the passing of 13 years the pages look fresh as a daisy, furnished with clear yet evocative photographs in place of the usual botanical illustrations. A picture is worth a thousand words and I have already had great fun acquainting myself with unfamiliar plants such as Widdringtonia and Ourisia.

Volume I features trees, shrubs and woodly climbers, whilst Volume II is devoted to annuals and perennials. In all plants from more than 1,200 distinct groups are described, from Acer to Amaranthus, Wellingtonia to Woodwardia. Plants are are presented and described in evolutionary order, beginning with the most primitive and ending with the most advanced. As general references and aids to plant identification they will be superb additions to my new library. Books ten years in the creation, I can see myself referring to them often and for many decades to come.

For me there is something far more alluring and informative about images than text, but then I am an especially visual person. This is one of the many reasons why I’m so excited to receive my “unread, in very good condition” copy of The Green Florilegium in the post before Christmas. I recall, some two years ago, walking past the window of Hatchards in Piccadilly and lusting after this extraordinary magnum opus. The original Green Florilegium, now in the care of the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen, is neither signed nor dated. However it’s believed to have been painted in the 17th Century by a German artist named Hans Simon Holtzbecker. In this century the book has been painstakingly restored so that the original colours and details shine off the pages once again. The Green Florilegium reproduces Holtzbecker’s entire catalogue of 400 beautiful illustrations in its entirety. Even at a third of the original cover price this is an expensive book, but one doesn’t expect to buy diamonds for coal.

An authoritative new book on Irish gardens written by Jane Powers, imaginatively entitled “The Irish Garden” (below), is right at the top of my Christmas list. Much to my chagrin, the gardens of The Emerald Isle remain largely unknown to me, apart from through the colour plates and descriptions of such wordly publications.

Until I right that wrong, I am more than content to take a walk down memory lane by perusing a recently purchased copy of “Irish Gardens” written by Edward Hyams with photographs by William MacQuitty. Published in 1967 this book enjoyed pride of place on my Cornish grandparents’ bookshelf. I was entranced by the images and staggered by the book’s size which, even now, strikes me as impressive. I would ask for the volume to be brought down (it was placed sensibly above the height where I could reach it) and would sit for hours gazing at the luridly coloured plates. They appeared to depict some kind of Nirvana. I think what struck me was not the grandeur of the gardens, but the way in which they sat so elegantly within Ireland’s stunning landscape. One day I would be very happy to experience those same scenes first hand.

In view of the great abundance of reading material I’ve procured for myself (and asked Father Christmas for) I have vowed to declare one day between Christmas and New Year an official ‘Reading Day’. If it happens it will be a miracle, but then a book is for life, not just for Christmas.

Whether you’re hoping for books, chocolates, diamonds, or simply some time to put your feet up, I wish you and your family a very joyful Christmas.

The Frustrated Gardener, December 22nd 2015.

One of my unwritten New Year’s resolutions is to address my southern bias when it comes to writing this blog. As someone who’s never lived more than three miles north of the M4, with a penchant for tender plants, I have little experience of gardening any closer to the North Pole than Reading. I am, as they say up North, a confirmed Soft Southerner.

In an attempt to toughen up, come with me, if you will, on a journey north of the border. Every year in January, February and early March the Scottish Snowdrop Festival sees some of the nation’s finest gardens and woodlands opening their gardens to crowds of snowdrop fanciers (oft known as ‘galanthophiles’). Many open especially for the festival, which runs from January 30th to March 13th 2016. Some charge a small fee and others are completely free to visit.

The epicentre of the festival is the Cambo Estate near St.Andrews, Fife, home to a National Collection of Galanthus and one of the best places to admire snowdrops in the UK. Since 1986 Catherine, Lady Erskine, has established Cambo as the best place from which to buy snowdrops ‘in the green’, sending out over 100,000 bulbs every year by mail. Each spring Lady Erskine and her eight children spent hours lifting, dividing and replanting the snowdrop collection which now occupies 70 acres of deciduous woodland. The result is a breathtaking carpet of our favourite harbinger of spring.

“The snowdrops are the perfect excuse to get out the house on a winter’s day. Families can come to the Estate and take a pleasant walk, purchase some specialist snowdrop bulbs and then enjoy a good bowl of soup and a snowdrop biscuit” says Lady Erskine. “We are very proud of our 70 acres of woodland which really come alive in the winter months with the snowdrops we spent hours digging and replanting the previous year. The name ‘Cambo’ is synonymous with snowdrops and we are now a major tourist attraction.”

If, like me, you’d need a place to lay your weary head after a hard day’s snowdrop appreciation, you might like to tarry a while at Cairnie South Tower in Cupar, which sleeps six, or at appropriately named Garden Cottage (below) a charming stone holiday cottage on the Kinloss Estate which sleeps five. I particularly like the sound of the old cooking range in the dining room and cast iron bath in which to warm my chilly bones.

Other Festival highlights

Around 60 gardens open for the Scottish Snowdrop Festival. Here are just six waiting to light your days – or nights – with a dazzling displays of snowdrops.

Craigengillan Estate and Dark Sky Observatory – On February 21st from 3pm to 7pm visitors to the Craigengillan Estate can indulge in a spot of snowdrop appreciation followed by star-gazing at the Dark Sky Observatory. The evening will be rounded off with a talk by the resident astronomer.

Abriachan Garden Nursery – On the shores of Loch Ness, Abriachan offers the opportunity to wander along pathways through native woodlands strewn with delicate snowdrops. The garden and nursery are open for the duration of the festival.

Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh – Edinburgh, one of my favourite Botanic Gardens, is a stunning place to visit at any time of the year. On Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from February 12th to March 6th Garden Guides will be conducting snowdrop tours from 11am to 12.30pm.

Duntreath Castle – With its turreted castle, 15th Century keep and formal gardens, Duntreath Castle is a classically romantic Scottish baronial pile. Stroll the woodland paths, admire the snowdrops lining a sweeping driveway and visit the stunning waterfall garden, all just half an hour’s drive from Glasgow or Stirling.

Dunskey Gardens and Maze – The beautiful walled garden and woodland walks at Dunskey boast 43 named varieties of snowdrop including: Galanthus ‘Dunskey Talia’, G. ‘Fred’s Giant’, G. ‘Robin Hood’ and G. ‘Sickle’. Gardener-led strolls are offered at 2pm each Sunday. If you’re looking for somewhere peaceful to stay nearby try The Smithy in Kirkcowan which sleeps four and boasts 10 miles of privately owned salmon and trout fishing.

Cluny House Gardens – An exceptional woodland garden overlooking the scenic Strathtay Valley near Aberfeldy. Enjoy the snowdrops and perhaps spot one of the garden’s red squirrels. If you’re travelling with a party, or planning a family gathering, then I like the look of Dunvarlich House, which comfortably sleeps ten and offers beautiful views over the River Tay to the hills beyond.

After the mild, wet start we’ve had to winter it’s worth contacting gardens to see when snowdrop displays will be at their finest before travelling a long distance. Visit Scotland’s website has details on all the properties and their opening dates and times. All that remains is to wrap up warm, don your wellies and enjoy the spectacle.

All properties mentioned above are available through Cottages & Castles. With thanks to The Cambo Estate for the kind use of their photographs. To purchase some of Lady Erskine’s lauded snowdrops ‘in the green’, and establish your own patch of winter magic, click here.

My initial response to the launch of “365 Days of Colour in Your Garden” at the end of 2015 was to ask myself whether gardeners really need another book on colour. Surely the subject has been amply covered by the likes of Percy Thrower (“Colour in Your Garden”, 1987), Penelope Hobhouse (“Colour in Your Garden”, 1995), Andrew Lawson (“The Gardener’s Book of Colour”, 1996) and Christopher Lloyd (the brilliant “Colour for Adventurous Gardeners” in 2005)? Perhaps, but what Nick Bailey attempts to do in this new book is help us to achieve the ambition of many a frustrated gardener: non-stop colour, all year round.

This is Nick Bailey’s first book and already an Amazon best seller. Little wonder with a front cover that proclaims exactly what’s in the tin. Jonathan Buckley’s thrilling image of rainkissed vermillion hemerocallis floating in a pool of vivid greens and blues sets the very high standard for this book’s illustrations. Showstoppers include an image of Achillea ‘Terracotta’ mingling with Aconitum carmichaelii Wilsonii Group (end of post) and the airy blooms of a mauve thalictrum flirting with wine-red dahlias. There is not a bad photograph in the book.

As Head Gardener at the Chelsea Physic Garden, Nick Bailey has plenty of experience when it comes to maintaining interest in a garden 365 days a year. He begins by explaining the science and nature of colour and how to combine different shades and hues, which is stuff many experienced gardeners will already be familiar with. However, quickly Nick gets into the main section of the book which describes a range of choice plants to cultivate for continuous flowers and foliage from early spring until late winter. This is very much a selection of the author’s favourites rather than a comprehensive list, but Nick clearly knows a good plant. I was pleased to see he had included Rosa ‘Bengal Crimson’, a rare rambler which never stops flowering in Central London.

I am rather less convinced by the need for the “Growing for Colour” section which sits between spring and summer: this does not strike me as the right place, even book, for a practical gardening guide and its presence spoils the flow. A section on how to extend the season of different flowers by choosing species and cultivars that bloom at different times might have been truly brilliant had it extended beyond 5 subjects: geraniums, clematis, narcissi, tulips (shown above) and roses. The chapter “Perfect Pairs” is sure to offer even the most adventurous gardener inspiration to try new planting combinations.

Naturally, it being mid-winter, I flicked straight to the back to see what Nick Bailey recommended to brighten our darkest days. Acid yellow Luzula sylvatica ‘Aurea’, Cyclamen coum, Iris unguicularis, Correa ‘Dusky Bells’, Grevillea ‘Canberra Gem’ and Acacia dealbata gleemed back at me from the glossy pages; proof that, with a little careful planting, your garden need never be dull.

“365 Days of Colour in Your Garden“, published by Kyle Books, is available from good bookshops now.

This may not be an especially significant birthday (there are no 0’s or 5’s involved) but I still hadn’t planned to spend it at home in bed with a cold. It looks like I am swapping Bollinger for Benylin, dressing up for a dressing gown and a night on the town for a night in front of the telly.

Among my presents from Him Indoors is Monty Don’s ‘Gardening at Longmeadow’, so that’s my afternoon on the sofa accounted for. I like to read Monty’s books with his mellifluous timbre running through my head: more soothing that hot lemon and honey. Meanwhile I need to muster the energy to call the nice man from RV Roger to pay for three espalier apple trees which are already out for delivery. I am sure he’ll be delighted to hear me coughing and rasping down the line.

Whilst I do have a touch of the blues on this dull, wintry day, life is not all bad. At least I am warm, dry and safe, unlike so many people in the world. Hence I have chosen an off-blue flower to head-up this post, the incomparable Iris unguicularis.

Better known as the Algerian iris, Iris unguicularis can also be found growing in Greece and North Africa. I call it incomparable because I know of no other plant like it in terms of habit or flowering behaviour. Despite its Mediterranean origins the Algerian iris is perfectly hardy in the UK and thrives on neglect. On the roughest, stoniest piece of ground you can find (preferably alkaline) plant it in full sun and then forget about it. From a coarse tussock of slim evergreen leaves will emerge a sequence of scented mauvey-blue flowers from Christmas until April. Each is as fine and gossamer-thin as the most delicate summer bloom, and sweetly scented too. Cannily, Iris unguicularis produces flowers sporadically so as to avoid them all being damaged by adverse weather. A wise strategy for any plant growing in a UK garden.

A purple flowered variety named ‘Mary Barnard’ has slightly shorter leaves than the species and is therefore tidier, whilst heavily scented ‘Walter Butt’ produces ice blue and lavender flowers in abundance whatever the elements have to throw at it. A pure white variety, ‘Alba’, is less vigorous than the species and is available from Avon Bulbs. This gold medal-winning nursery also offers a cultivar of Zimbabwean origin called ‘Marondera’ which carries larger, darker flowers than most. Brighton Plants, a specialist in rare and unusual plants for dry, alkaline soils, offers a sublimely elegant variety named ‘Peloponnese Snow’ (image below – I want one!) as well as another garden-worthy species, Iris lazica, which boast neater foliage than I. unguicularis and tolerates a degree more shade and moisture.

“Patience seems to be the only manure these irises need”, observed the great 20th-century gardener and plantsman E.A. Bowles “the older a clump grows, the better it flowers”. My parents have had a clump in their garden for 34 years, never touched, and still it flowers heartily every winter. Patience seems to be what my cold needs too, albeit the older I get the worse the colds become!

In parallel with the mercury in my thermometer, the spring seed, bulb and plant catalogues are starting to drop, drop, drop onto the doormat. A film of thin, clear plastic is all that stands between me and the treasures proffered within. Even in my Night Nurse-saturated state I feel excited by the prospects for my garden in 2016. I will scour the latest brochures’ pages from front to back, two or three times, before beginning to mark my choices in ink. This year my seal of approval is a scruffy, yet jaunty, Barbie-pink star.

The first catalogue through the letterbox was sent by Burncoose Nurseries, a fine Cornish establishment owned by the same Williams’ family that gifted gardeners of the temperate world Camellia x williamsii hybrids, as well as countless rhododendrons and magnolias. Burncoose is one of those rare nurseries that stocks a huge range of unusual perennials and tender shrubs as well as prodigious collections of camellias, rhododendrons and magnolias, as you might expect. Although their main business is mail order, I am fortunate to pass by the nursery a couple of times each year, picking up rare beauties such as Ozothamnus rosmarinifolius ‘Silver Jubilee’, Tradescantia ‘Purple Sabre’ and the New Zealand rock lily, Arthropodium cirratum ‘Matapouri Bay’. This year I am sorely tempted by a new postbox-red salvia called S. ‘Embers Wish’ from New Zealand (below); coral-red Crocosmia ‘Limpopo’ and pink Agapetes ‘Ludgvan Cross’ AGM, a faintly reptilian and other-worldly-looking evergreen shrub which requires acid soil (uh-oh!).

For the last few seasons the bulk of my bulb orders have been going to Jacques Amand (Living Colour Bulbs). Their range is extensive, particularly if one is in the market for something unusual or unpronounceable (“Sprekelia formosissima anyone?”, “Well thank you, just the one!”). Having had rude success with pleiones (I am still not exactly sure what I am doing right) I fancy trying out purply-pink P. ‘Aurita’ and buttercup yellow P. ‘Forrestii’. The prices are eye-watering at first glance, but equate to less than three London pints, which is my comparison-cum-justification of choice for anything less than £30. (Should you not be au fait with the cost of a London pint, it’s currently in excess of £5 in most establishments where I live.)

I am planning to line the narrow pathway to Polegate Cottage with a collection of sun-loving nerines. Like the pleiones, they have indicated that they get on with my style of gardening, so I am going to encourage them with the purchase of four more varieties: N. ‘Isabel’ (deep-pink); N. ‘Ostara’ (just-pink); N. ‘Companion Mr John’ (purple-red); and N. ‘Vesta’ (shell-pink). One can spend an awful lot of money on nerines, which is a risk if one’s planting outside, so I am going for a careful balance of quantity versus choiceness.

Last on today’s wonder list is Sarah Raven. Judging by the size of this spring’s catalogue, business is booming at Perch Hill. Sarah opens her catalogue with dahlias, a very personal selection centred around her favourite palette of apricots, corals, oranges, plums, aubergines and decadent reds. It’s here that I stock up on tubers of my favourite Dahlia ‘American Dawn’: get in quick because they sold out in 2015.

Tickling my fancy this year are D. ‘Magenta Star’ (very much for the back of the border); D. ‘Mambo’ (reddish-mauve anemone-flowered dahlia) and, talk of the town introduction, D. ‘Darkarin’ which Sarah describes as having flowers the colour of a ‘beautiful, faded velvet cushion’. Spot on. A dahlia I love the look of but am struggling to place is D. ‘Labyrinth’. Sarah admits she never thought she’d like it, but it reminds her of the Queen Mother’s hat. Those romantically ruffled petals are straight from a milliner’s sketch book. Last on my list is a variety I admired at The Salutation last year, the wonderfully relaxed and irreverent D. ‘Walzing Matilda’.

The challenge now is to work out how to smuggle all these bulbs and plants past Him Indoors. With building work looming all spending is under the closest of scrutiny, despite my pleas to have shoes, shirts and plants excluded from the austerity. We may not have door knobs, but we will have dahlias. All unnecessary consumption is met with a deep, bank manager-esque frown. On top of that the garden at Polegate Cottage will be completely off-limits, which means, yet again, that the dining room at The Watch House will have to serve as a temporary nursery. Still, if God had meant us to be sensible or frugal he wouldn’t have invented credit cards, would he?

I’d love to hear what’s caught your eye in the spring catalogues and how you plan to spend your precious gardening budget this year. TFG.

Eranthis hyemalis: winter aconite, winter hellebore, winter wolf’s bane.

Jack Frost has arrived in the south of England, wrapping his icy arms around our London garden, petrifying bare earth with his icy breath. His late arrival has sent many optimistic plants that dared to bloom early back into hiding. The puckered, pink flowers of Magnolia x soulangeana are already tinged brown, tainted forever, whilst hellebores hang their pretty heads in shame. Yet all is not lost. Beneath the trees, shoulder-to-shoulder with shimmering snowdrops, little pools of winter sunshine are forming, quickly merging to create serpentine lakes of glowing gold. The plant responsible for this prevernal phenomenon is the winter aconite, Eranthis hyemalis.

Winter aconites live fast and die young, sprouting from frozen earth in January and disappearing underground by late spring. Flowers leap like tiny candle flames from a backswept ruff of glossy stem leaves held just a few centimetres above the ground. Despite their fleeting appearance the tubers, which should be planted about 10cm beneath the soil surface, insist on consistent moisture throughout the year – the norm in our London garden. They grow especially well on alkaline soils. Winter aconites like to be planted beneath deciduous shrubs and trees, well away from dense evergreens which might shade and hide them from view. When happy, winter aconites will spread about freely from seed dispersed in late spring.

Like snowdrops, winter aconites are not native to the British Isles, hailing from warmer areas of Europe such as the Balkans, Italy and Southern France. Nevertheless they are obliging, unfussy little visitors that never fail to open their flowers, even on the frostiest winter morning. They share with their cousins, the buttercups, that unique characteristic of being able to reflect light, even in the absence of sunshine. Pure joy. I recommend planting winter aconites beneath a yellow witch hazel or early flowering cherry such as Prunus x subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’, surrounded by snowdrops, Leucojum vernum, primulas and plumonarias that will produce enough luxuriant foliage to disguise the aconites as they turn and fade.

I have always thought of my paternal grandfather as a practical, gentleman gardener. When I was a child he was head gardener on a country estate in Buckinghamshire, playing his part in the steady decline of a once great walled garden and its modest range of glasshouses. It was the end of an era, a glimpse of 400 years of history drawing to a close. I thought it was magical. Grandpa Cooper taught me how to force rhubarb, thin grapes, pollinate peaches, maintain a rotary mower and grow asparagus, skills I’ve rarely had the opportunity to use, but which I hope might come in handy one day.

Like his attire, grandpa’s gardens were neat, tidy and structured, harking back to the Edwardian manner of doing things. Consequently I never considered him an artistic man, until this week. My dad had been looking through my late grandmother’s old photographs and found, at the bottom of a box, a few scraps of crumpled paper on which my grandfather had sketched spring flowers. My dad recalls these were once part of a larger collection of drawings which we assume is no more. We think they were sketched when Grandpa Cooper (Dennis) was at night school in the 1930s. Despite their age and condition I think they are rather good; naive perhaps, but full of colour and movement. I wish I had the time and patience to equal them.

I am delighted the sketches have reappeared. They’ve not only revealed a gift I didn’t know Grandpa Cooper possessed, but brought back many fond memories of the years when my love of gardening began to grow. Hopefully they will now be preserved as a reminder of my grandpa’s artistic talent, no longer hidden away from view.

We all have hidden talents. What are yours?